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3 Dimensional Chat / help with CharacterFX or new animation program

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jasonhtml
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 01:14 Edited at: 29th Aug 2006 01:42
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well, lately ive been using CFX quite a bit and its been making really mad. whenever i export to .x something almost always goes wrong. i would like to export to .x, but ive tried almost every combination of export options(each with slightly different results, but none the less, always messed up) does anyone have any suggestions to keep CFX working? ive gotten it to export only about 15% of my models correctly...

and if no one can help, then i am also considering new animation programs(i would very much prefer something close to CFX). im very picky and i cant seem to find any good animation programs... heres the ones ive tried so far, and what i think of them(please list any more decent animation programs that AREN'T listed. they dont have to be free, but try to keep it under $30 or so...)

Milkshape - well, decent program, but i found it kind of a pain to assign the verts well... CFX does a better job of that.

FragMotion - the GUI is so horrible, i cant navigate. im never touching that program again.

Anim8tor - great modeler, but doesnt export animations... shame...

3D Canvas - i found it too hard to use. rotating and moving the camera is a big pain...

Blender - horrible GUI like FragMotion, and hard to use :/


sorry if i am being way to picky... i just really like using CFX. its so easy to use, it just doesnt export .x correctly... i notice that quite a few forum members still use CFX... do you run into as many problems as i do?


Thread: http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=78971&b=8&p=0
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Chenak
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 02:34
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CFX export works perfectly for me, the bugginess of the program annoys the crap out of me but anyway.. If you're having problems you could export to milkshape ascii, assuming you have milkshape and export from there. Should work perfectly.
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jasonhtml
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 03:01
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hm... is it possible that it exports badly because im importing from a .obj file? i wouldnt think so, but its possible i guess... what files do you import with?

btw, i just noticed that the CFX website doesnt exist anymore


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Chenak
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 04:37
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Yer, its a shame they stopped working on it, could have been a great animator.

I've always been fine with obj imports. What exactly happens when you try to use the objects in dbpro?
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transient
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 05:17
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That app died a slow death.

The forums have been removed from the Fragmotion site as well, so perhaps we're seeing the end of that app as well.

It's a shame that nobody seems to be able to finish a quality shareware animation app that exports readily to games.

I still think Fragmotion is okay, and I'm not sure at this price point you can afford to be too picky about guis and stuff (although I do agree with your opinions on Fragmotion and Blender), but I guess it's your call.
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jasonhtml
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 06:17
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@chenak: hm... well, like i said about 15% of my models DO work, but the ones that don't: they verts are in random positions, the UV mapping is messed up. basically, i can make a cube, and it will export as a jumble of polygons. but, like i said, it likes some models, hates all the others. i cant find any culprit that would cause such a thing.

@transient: well, without decent guis, i get confused and my work never finishes... im actually looking into making my own animation program... no promises, but it makes me wonder if i can do it..


Thread: http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=78971&b=8&p=0
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Van B
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 17:21
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Jason, feel the same way about CharacterFX - but I get like 99% of my stuff working fine, pretty flawless operation.

However, one benefit with importing and exporting for DBPro is owning 3DS Max, because a .3DS file exported from 3DS Max is a damn good format - if I import a .3DS then I can fairly well guarantee that it'll be intact by the time it reaches DBPro.

Why not upload an example - and we can experiment til we find out the problem - personally my money is on a slightly dodgy OBJ export from your modelling app, going by the results I've had with CFX.

''Stick that in your text and scroll it!.''
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Chenak
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 17:37 Edited at: 29th Aug 2006 17:38
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Make sure every vertex is assigned to a bone. When you export use these settings only.

DirectX8 skin and Bones
Binary file
Output skin and bones Templates only
Absolute Texture Paths
Uniform scale = 0.1
Loop animation
Spline Positions
Spline Rotations
Scale keyFrames = 100

If it fails again, just export to milkshape ascii then use that .x exporter

Urm, obj is far more better than 3ds imo Its flawless if you get the settings right depending on where you export from. 3ds always has problems, especially polygons breaking apart at the smooth groups, that annoys the hell outta me.

If your using 3dsmax export use these settings:

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jasonhtml
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 19:40
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@Van B: well, i was trying to find an example, but then it suddenly decided to work i cant find any non-working examples on my pc because i usually just delete them...

i guess when i come across one, ill just post it here.

@chenak: the settings that you use for exporting: what does making it a binary file do exactly? is it better? and what does splining the positions and rotations do? i thought i read somewhere that that could cause problems... maybe im wrong?


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Chenak
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 22:26
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binary format is just that, its a direct x model in binary, It's smaller and can load faster than the text format, which is what it will export to if you disable it.

Splining the positions and rotations is what character fx uses for its animation, so you can pretty much be sure it will look the same in dbpro. Also it's just better I can't go into details cause I use trial and error to get em to work, but it works so can't complain
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adr
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 00:12
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Quote: "Splining the positions and rotations is what character fx uses for its animation, so you can pretty much be sure it will look the same in dbpro."

... since when did that start working?! I've been moaning on for about 3 years to get splined positions/rotations but I haven't heard anything official, so I assumed it hadn't been implemented.

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Chenak
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 01:08
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It works fine with it, and horrible without it for me so I assume it works

Do you mean it not working in dbpro or CFX?

I could be wrong because i try to do little animation as possible, but it works so thats all I need to know. Whether or not it actually uses splined positions and rotations I just don't know. I heard thats what CFX uses.
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adr
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 11:09
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Last time I checked, DBPro used Linear interpolation to animate. So, setting the animation interpolation to "linear" in CFX gives an accurate representation of how it'll look. Once in DBPro - irrespective of the export settings - the animations were always interpolated linearly.

Like I said though - that may have changed.

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